About Black Friday
Black Friday is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November every year and is followed by Thanksgiving Day in the United States of America. Canada celebrates on the same day as the US. Since 1952, this day has been considered the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the United States. It is the biggest shopping season of the year and has a great impact on the retail industry. Many stores become profitable on this huge shopping day, and people get offers and deals on various products and services.
Real Story Behind Black Friday
Black Friday seems to be the happiest shopping day in the US and Canada today. However, the beginning of this day actually was darker than we think – the term ‘Black Friday’ was first used on Sep 24th, 1869, when two investors named Jay Gould and James Fisk formed the Gold Ring to corner the gold market and drove up the gold price on the New York Gold Exchange and caused a crash on that day. This scandal dropped 20% of the stock market and stopped foreign trade.
According to Business Insider, the ‘Black Friday’ term was again used in the 1950s by Philadelphia police, referring to the day between Thanksgiving and the Army-Navy game. The city was crowded hugely with shoppers and tourists on that Friday, and the cops had a tough time and worked long hours to manage the crowd and the traffic. The merchants in the area tried altering the term ‘Black Friday’ to ‘Big Friday’ and but it never happened. Eventually, by the late 1980s, the term ‘Black Friday’ had spread nationwide positively.
How Black Friday Came into Canada?
According to Michael LeBlanc, a senior retail advisor at the Retail Council of India, Black Friday had picked up its significance in Canada about a decade ago when the Canadian dollar was on par with the US dollar and people from Canada crossing the border to take advantage of the great shopping deals in the US. It was a loss to retailers in Canada if they do not create a shopping event before Christmas. This caused Black Friday in Canada in the Christmas holiday season.
If you want to check out more Black Friday info?
All You Need to Know About Black Friday Shopping around Vancouver
Source: Business Insider, Yahoo, Wikipedia
